


Lockdown

by Moonshape



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Chaotic space lesbians, Darmok and Jalad on the ocean, F/F, Frustration and yearning, In this house we undo Berman's heteronormative storytelling one fic at a time, Sometimes I like my Kathryn sweary, Starfleet conference tables have never been put to such good use, five years post-endgame, the angst is strong with this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:14:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 5,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27289225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonshape/pseuds/Moonshape
Summary: It's five years since Voyager returned, and our hopeless heroines still haven't got their acts together.Unrequited love + yearning + hopelessness = rage + angst.Rage and angst + the "and then they got locked in together in a small space" trope = ???? a happy ending ????
Relationships: Kathryn Janeway/Seven of Nine
Comments: 52
Kudos: 102





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vavavavoom_beautifulbeautifulbombshell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vavavavoom_beautifulbeautifulbombshell/gifts).



> So a little idea lodged itself in my head and then grew. And then something else popped up and....what was gonna be a v short one shot became something else entirely. So, I'm gonna try short, little intriguing chapters instead...let's see how it goes😋  
> Decided to gift this work to my greatest cheerleader when it comes to writing 🖤💙💚  
> Comments and kudos always exceptionally welcome!

Kathryn was tired, angry, and more than a little drunk.  _ Stupid  _ \- she thought to herself.  _ Stupid and careless. Admiral’s do not get themselves into this state.  _ The lights in the side room she had found were, mercifully, turned down low. She perched on the edge of a table near the door and allowed the tension in her shoulders to flow away for the first time in hours. She gave a small sigh and waited for the inevitable melancholy to set in. She had never felt so acutely alone.

The reunion had gone exceptionally well; the exquisitely decorated, bright ballroom reverberated with laughter, with the touch of glasses against one another, and with the warmth of friendship and camaraderie. Admiral Janeway knew that her speech had been another resounding success. As always. She had been eloquent, funny and charming, navigating with care the line between being the untouchable legend, and the down-to-earth, relatable officer.  _ Thank fuck that’s over and done with for another year. Being a good example is exhausting.  _ She shrugged off her dress uniform jacket and laid it carefully over the table in front of her.  _ Damn thing. That high, scratchy neck always feels like it’s grating my skin raw every time I move. _

She knew the vital function these formal events had for many of the former Voyager crew. They allowed reconnections within this found family, now scattered again all over the galaxy; for some they were a celebration of resilience and hope against the odds; for some simply the space to process what had happened to them, the shared trauma of being lost for seven years. Her head starting to ache vaguely, Kathryn sighed again. The happiness she felt at seeing familiar faces, embracing beloved friends and fellow officers, never lasted more than a few minutes. All it took was _ their _ arrival to crush her spirits and plunge her into a well of emotions so deep and dark it would take her weeks to recover. Sometimes months. Speeches, handshakes and interminable photographs done, it was the same every year: find a place to hide; breathe; let the tsunami of self-loathing run its course.  _ Gods, I want to go home, I want to be away from all this. Away from her. _

The doors opened behind her and someone entered: someone who clearly didn't stand on ceremony. Someone who, incredibly, hadn’t deigned to either ask or wait for permission before coming into an occupied room. She stood up and turned, snapping her head around so sharply that it hurt.  _ Of course. Who else? _


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turns out even trying to keep a chapter under 500 words is challenging as all hell 🤣

The sound of the door closing behind Seven of Nine was enough to make Janeway grit her teeth, bumping against her already frayed nerves. 

“You have not spoken to me all night,” the young woman started, as blunt and hostile as gunfire. “Moreover, you actively avoided joining whichever group I was a part of during the enforced ‘mingling’ after dinner. When I tried to approach _you,_ you - very deliberately and I must say hurtfully - found a manner in which to elude me on each and every occasion.”

“Numerous times?” Kathryn could recognise the danger in her own tone; could sense it cut through the thick air between them, but she had no control over it. “Bit imprecise for you isn’t it?” A flush of anger lit her cheeks and she clenched her fists unconsciously by her sides. _This is bad, Katie. Get a grip on yourself and that tone of yours. You’ve had too much whiskey by far._

“You want to know? Really?” The younger woman projected an arrogance as she edged a little closer to her former Captain, trying but failing to make eye contract. “Six and a half times. I gave up part way through the last, something you should know makes me very uncomfortable. There is nothing logical in pursuing a course of action which will, without doubt, fail. I observe that our behaviour with me is even more petulant than this time last year.” Seven’s face and voice were hard. “Why?” 

“You were there, Seven.” The young woman's face softened, minutely as she quirked an eyebrow in confusion. Kathryn felt an almost overwhelming urge to storm out, get out of Starfleet Headquarters and, ideally, punch a wall when she got home.

“I was.....there?” 

_Stop it. Stop it, stop it, stop it._ Kathryn lowered her eyes, unable to stand the flash of uncertainty written across Seven’s uncomprehending face. _She can’t even know she bites her goddamn lip in consternation._ Kathryn swallowed and closed her eyes, counting to ten. Then, a little afraid, went for another ten. _This is exactly why I’m so careful to never end up anywhere near her._

“I don’t want to talk about this, Seven. I didn’t last year, or the year before. Or the one before that. I’ve told you everything I can already. We were friends on Voyager and now we aren’t. We haven’t been for years. I told you -  _ I told you _ \- that I couldn’t be. And you  _ promised _ to respect that.” She consciously focused on masking the edge of pleading desperation in her own voice, silently thanking Starfleet for the rigours of its command training. 

The younger woman hesitated, knowing that she was crossing some kind of invisible line. “But I do not understand why and....I believe I need to.” Kathryn made the mistake of looking over at her, feeling her her breath catch in her throat. Seven was struggling to arrange her face, painfully clearly fighting to locate and maintain her normal composure. It was years since the former Captain had seen another person’s internal battle and pain so visibly. _She is still so vulnerable, Gods. But I don’t want this conversation. I want out of here and then to never, ever see her again._ “Leave me alone,” the older woman virtually snarled, darting towards the door, any pretence at self-possession abandoned. Seven gripped Kathryn’s wrists with a force that shocked them both, stopping her dead in her tracks with a painful hold from which the Admiral realised she didn’t want to be released. It was somehow right, fully logical - emotional pain made manifest in the physical. And something else aside from that. _Warmth,_ she thought, _intimacy and....pleasure._ Her own thoughts startled her out of silence and she squared up to Seven, facing her head on. _It’s now or never, Katie. Start self-destruct sequence._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, in my hc Kathryn swears plenty 😋  
> Comments and kudos always make me shiny 💖

“I loved you and I thought - I fucking  _ knew _ that you loved me too. All through those last few years on Voyager, during everything we experienced, everywhere we went... _ you _ , you were the thread through it all. The only thing holding me together - the only way I could find my way home.  _ Our  _ way home _. _ ” Kathryn could feel traitorous tears threatening to spill down her cheeks.  _ Why am I so weak? So damn human?  _ The familiar coping strategy of barely contained anger reared its head before she continued to speak. The heat of it blossomed again inside of her and burnt through the remaining hurt and sadness, turning it to smouldering ash in a matter of seconds. “All through all of it,” she could feel the volume of her own voice rising but there was no turning back now. “Through everything - you were my whole fucking  _ world _ Seven, and I stupidly believed I was yours. I really believed it - heart and soul.” Now she fought to pull her wrists away from the younger woman’s grip with a jarring wrench. “Right up to the minute I found out you were with Chakotay.” She spat the name out as though it were venom. “You chose  _ him _ . And you keep choosing him - every day of your life. It’s all I hear about - the beautiful home, your wonderful careers...all that shit you parade in front of us every year at these reunions whilst you walk about with his arm around you for hours and hours. It makes me sick.”

Kathryn slid down the wall to the floor, suddenly purged of years of bitterness, resentment and hurt. There was nothing else left to sustain her. Seven caught her former captain instinctively as she fell, lowering her gently down, wordless. She shook herself, fighting against the undeniable urge to wrap her arms around Janeway, to reach out to stroke her hair. Kathryn didn’t notice. Feeling like a cloth that had been wrung out, she fought to anchor herself in the moment, focusing on the multicoloured fibres of the carpet. She reached her hand out to test its weave against her fingertips and murmured something. Even with her enhanced hearing, Seven struggled to catch it immediately. “Sometimes, I thought I was going mad,” Kathryn whispered. “As though it never happened - that connection between us, that chemistry. The way I lit up inside every time you walked in the room and made no attempt to hide it. It seemed so clear to me that you felt the same and then….you just  _ left _ me. Never said anything, never explained. You made me think,” she sobbed quietly, too tired to hold it back any longer, “that it was never really like that, that I’d made it up. Somehow, that it must have just been in my mind all along, that I tricked myself into seeing things I wanted to….into believing you could ever love me back.”

“I….am…….” Seven felt as though she had lost all control over her body, and her voice. Her words came out trembling, her mind in a state of terrifying freefall. The older woman kept her eyes and her attention, impossibly, on the floor. “I am,” she tried again, “.....sorry.” 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small warning that if you don't wanna see a super mad, super pained Kathryn and a somewhat messed up vibe between these two......this might not be your jam. Me, I think we need to let women's rage take up more space. And also - seriously Seven, feckin Chakotay?!

Kathryn looked up, her eyes a stormy mixture of anguish and reignited rage. “Sorry,” she tasted the word as though it was something toxic against her tongue. She stood up, visibly shaking, forcing Seven to follow her lead and get to her feet. She held the younger woman’s eyes, her gaze suddenly defiant and her considerable command presence back like a shield, seeming to fill half the room. 

“Tell me,” she said, her voice as ragged as her breathing. “Tell me, you never think of me when you’re with him.” The last of the whiskey and misery pulsed through Kathryn’s veins as she felt her adrenaline levels soar, as she threw herself against Seven, her fists flailing. “Tell me - once and for all - that you’ve never imagined it was me fucking you. That it was  _ never _ me you really wanted.” Seven acted out of pure instinct, seeing no reason to let Kathryn exhaust herself further. She pinned the older woman’s arms to her sides before she could hurt either of them. And she waited, barely breathing, feeling the heat of her own arousal and the slight thrill of Kathryn struggle against her, the weight of this conversation between them,  _ finally.  _

“You wish me to answer that?” 

“Screw you, Seven of Nine. Screw  _ you. _ ”

“I will take that as a yes. Desist.” Janeway continued to fight the ex-Borg’s grip, her strength not waning at all. "I said  _ stop,  _ Kathryn." The name from her lips was like a curse, a caress, and a prayer, all at once. The shock of it did make the older woman, finally, stop. Her arms went limp, drained of all energy, allowing Seven to loosen but not release her hold. She was sure that, if she did, her former captain - this infuriating, headstrong, bewitching piece of chaos in front of her - would crumple to the floor at her feet.

"You've never used my name before." They stood no more than a breath away from each other. When Seven spoke, her voice was timid but her eyes were dark and wide, full of something Kathryn couldn't begin to fathom.

When the alarm sounded, piercing and abrupt, the Admiral didn’t even flinch. Seven, on the other hand, nearly jumped out of her skin. Janeway wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t seen it herself but then, she realised, it had been five years.  _ It’s a long time since she’s even dreamt about red alert. Must be a nice way to live.  _ The disembodied voice over the comm system had a tone of absolute calm, and Kathryn recognised it with a jolt. It was the one used by someone with years of solid training - the one used to carefully mask abject panic. 

“This is a priority message from Ops broadcasting on all channels. This is not a drill. A level one biohazard has been identified within this building complex. An automated, immediate quarantine of all facilities and rooms has been initiated. Turbolifts have been halted and doors sealed until further notice. Environmental systems and life support will continue to operate as normal. Remain calm, shelter in place and await further instruction. Ops out.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For which (and let's be honest....going forward as well...) I had to change the rating 😉  
> Those reading this and sending comments and kudos - y'all are amazing and wonderful 🤗🥰 and I'm thrilled you're enjoying this one!!

"I use your name all the time when I'm talking about you to other people.”  _ Incredible,  _ thought the Admiral.  _ I’d forgotten how single-minded she could be. She’s not even going to acknowledge that terrifying message we just heard. She’s continuing our conversation as though nothing has happened.  _ “When I'm thinking about you - it's always as Kathryn." Janeway tried and failed to clamp down on the spark of happiness which flared inside her.  _ She thinks about me. _ "Anyway, I am certain that I'm right in this case. That is who I'm talking to, is it not?" 

Before the older woman could make sense of what she’d heard, she found herself pushed back, hard, against the conference table behind her. Her hands went out behind her instinctively, finding smooth wood to grab onto as the backs of her thighs hit its edge. Seven, it seemed, could still move at lightening speed and, judging by her face, could surprise even herself. Janeway’s attempt to get even half a word out was cut short immediately. 

"Just for once, shut up and listen," Seven said, breathing harder than a moment before and stepping in painfully close. "I am most definitely correct in addressing Kathryn." The older woman barely stifled a moan at their proximity, at the intensity she saw in the face and body language of the woman in front of her, at her own acute want.  _ It must be a dream. After all these years...this can't be real. She can't really be here, pinning me against a piece of Starfleet furniture and breathing down my neck as though she wants to ravish me. I must have finally lost it. But damn, let this hallucination - if that's what it is - never end. I couldn’t bear it.  _ Seven reached out her hand and knotted it into the back of the older woman's hair, pulling hard to angle her head just right so that, when she leant in to speak, her hot breath caressed Janeway’s ear. Kathryn, exhausted, gave up the fight to project some semblance of self control. Her legs turned to jelly, her hands left the table and grabbed, blindly, at Seven's sides.

"I do not think it is the lauded, highly-decorated and unerringly professional officer I'm speaking to, is it?” the young woman asked, her face flushed. “I don't think it is  _ Admiral _ Janeway asking me if it's her touch I'm dreaming of when I'm naked and wet and panting. When I'm crying out in climax." Kathryn heard a shockingly loud whimper and flushed crimson as she realised it had come out of her own mouth. She knew the table behind her was the only blessed thing keeping them both from virtually melting into a single puddle on the floor. With her last ounce of coherent thought and muscle control, Kathryn sat herself on the table and opened her legs. She pulled Seven in between her thighs, holding the younger woman tight, trying to control her own trembling.  _ I will never let you go now, _ she thought. 

Seven looked down into Janeway’s eyes as she spoke, one hand still hot on the back of her neck, the other sliding underneath the fabric of her tank top to rest on the sensitive skin of her waist. “And the answer is yes. The answer is -  _ constantly. _ You're all I ever think about, every minute of every goddamn day. And I have developed my imagination  _ significantly _ fantasising about the feel of your body against mine, daydreaming about how you would taste with your hips bucking from the ministrations of my mouth."  _ This is it, I'm dying _ , Kathryn thought as Seven continued, relentlessly letting spill years of longing and frustration. “I’ve imagined how it would be to scream your name with you buried deep inside me, how I would willingly give myself to you completely. Forever.” Seven whispered now, shocked to realise that they were both clinging to one another shamelessly, sobbing quietly. “And how it would be to be able to tell you all this, at long last.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Glad some of you seem to be enjoying this one although I've just been reunited with my gf after TEN MONTHS apart so I can't guarantee much writing is gonna get done. Just quickly uploading the last chapter I'd written already before she arrived. 
> 
> May then need to have a wee break to live a bit of my own happily ever after 🥰 (Although, to be fair, LOOOOOOVE also (obviously) spurs me on to write *plenty* so we'll see 😊😊😊

Carefully and with a tenderness she barely recognised in herself, Kathryn reached out and tucked some chaotic strands of the younger woman's hair behind her ears. She cupped Seven's face in her shaking hands and gently used her thumbs to wipe away tears that were still falling. The ex-Captain found herself amazed at how much courage she needed to summon to complete this simple gesture - to reach out and touch the cheeks of the woman she had loved for so long. Seven lowered her head and rested her mouth against Kathryn's forehead, kissing her there again and again, the brush of her lips light but full of meaning. Neither of them spoke. When the alarm sounded again, the Admiral broke the contact, moving her head sharply out of pure instinct to incline an ear towards the latest announcement. 

" This is a priority message from Ops, broadcasting on all channels. This is not a drill. Bio-filters in these buildings' life support systems have been altered to identify and eradicate airborne traces of the biohazard detected earlier but it is not yet safe to move around the complex. Full lockdown will remain in place until such time as it is. Please only use internal communication channels in the case of a genuine medical emergency. Replicators should only be used for water and emergency rations, if and when the latter becomes necessary. Ops out." 

The voice had broken the immediate spell between them but none of the magic in Seven's eyes had dissipated. "It seems we are not going anywhere," she said simply. She ran her hands slowly down the length of Kathryn's back, marvelling at the intense wave of pleasure which hit her as the older woman allowed herself to groan freely, and to lean into the touch. When her hands reached the waistband of Janeway's uniform pants, she hesitated minutely before continuing her journey down. Kathryn gasped as Seven pulled her seated form right to the edge of the table, undisguised want sparking between them as their bodies met, flush against one another. _Pulled towards her by the ass no less. I could get used to this. Gods, I hope I even have the chance to_ \- _but_ _I can't let this happen before I know. I have to be sure._ Seven placed a tantalising, perfect kiss on the corner of Kathryn's mouth but the older woman pulled back ever so slightly, needing to hold on to one final shred of control. 

"But how…. Chakotay - you and he - I don't understand." She sighed as Seven placed a kiss on the other corner of her mouth and lingered there, her breath warm and so very welcome against Kathryn's cheek. "You're not…?" The younger woman took Janeway's hands in her own and gazed at her with a look so earnest and full of love, it was all the ex-Captain could do not to pull her into the deep kiss they so clearly both desired.

"We have not been for a long time. If, indeed, we ever really were. He is a good man, Kathryn. Good and kind. He would make a wonderful husband to someone who could love him, I am sure. Wait," she murmured, her finger reaching up to Janeway's opening lips. "Let me finish, my love."  _ Her love, her love her love her love.  _ Kathryn vaguely wondered if the biohazard loose in the building was the cause of this delirium and whether, somehow, it could have got into their room. 

"Call me that again," she said. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I haven't written FOREVER although I don't think it's been much more than a week 😅 I really appreciate the comments from those of you reading and enjoying this story...you know it keeps me going to hear your lovely feedback so thank you and always feel free to leave more (if you want, that it 🤗)
> 
> I know that I'm continuing to make these two suffer and also that this is rapidly becoming the longest failed one-shot in history but I *really* enjoyed writing this chapter so I hope that all you lovely readers also like it just as much. And more soon - promise! 💙💛🧡

"My love," Seven said again, her face glowing warm at her own use of the word, at the way it had rolled off her tongue without conscious thought. "You  _ are _ my love. I do not know how else to say it.” She paused and took a deep, grounding breath. “You were my everything on Voyager too, Kathryn….my entire world. There were months when I lived - I survived - only for those hours, minutes, even seconds I was with you. I didn't know how to tell you - oh, I dreamed about it, planned it, rehearsed it so many times but I could never go through with it. I could only wait for you to be the one who took that step." She ran the pad of her thumb over Janeway's lips and the older woman let out a deep sigh full of an aching, long-held sadness.  _ We could have had this so many years ago. _ "I was drowning in it," Seven said, her eyes dewy. "I needed you to be the one to save me…..but you never did. And I didn't understand." 

_ Gods, my beautiful, impossible, tormented and tormenting woman…. I'll save you now.  _ Before the younger woman could say another word, Kathryn moved her mouth upwards to the mesh-enclosed fingers resting on her cheek and wrapped her lips around two of them, drawing them into the hot moisture of her mouth and lapping at their hypersensitive metallic ridges with her tongue. Seven's intake of breath was a sharp hiss as she lent her head back. After a second her eyes fluttered shut as she visibly gave in to her most fundamental instinct - to allow herself to melt into this pleasure, given freely and willingly after so many years.

"Look at me," Kathryn pulled back and spoke more softly than Seven had ever heard her before. "Don't close your eyes. Please." The earlier tension remained and their mutual anger, frustration and hurt writhed around them like uninvited guests, jostling for space and air. The former Captain could feel the pain and the distance between herself and the only person she had ever truly loved - a chasm of space, time, and turbulent emotions - and it was unbearable. Unbearable, until Seven  _ did  _ open her eyes. Until she spoke in a voice so soft and so tender, it surprised them both.

“I am looking at you, Kathryn Janeway. And I see you - I see all that you are. All your flaws and human imperfections.” Seven moved so close that their lips were almost touching and the older woman felt every part of her body react with a breath-taking mixture of fear, hope, and deeply primitive arousal. “Every. Single. One.” The younger woman knotted her hands into the back of Kathryn’s hair possessively. “And I still love you. I still need you. I still - desperately - want you.” 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A cliff-hanger is always really just too delicious to resist, no? 😋 Hope you won't all kill me for leaving you another but....take comfort in this somewhat outrageous image of Kathryn my brain conjured up. And tbf, it was always gonna happen which you'll have known if you pay any attention to tags at all 😆😆😆

The kiss was anything but soft, anything but gentle. It was pure passion, all-consuming and greedy. Kathryn felt a wave of raw, untempered emotion fill her body as Seven pulled her in deeper, claiming her mouth and - she knew - her heart and soul along with it. At any other point in her life or with anyone else, Janeway would have pulled away from the dominance and ownership implied in how Seven’s hands held her exactly in place, how her teeth bruised the older woman’s lower lip more than once. She would have been terrified at how easily the younger woman could strip away every last vestige of her famous and well-practiced self-control. But not this time. Unnameable sensations swam through her feverish body as she surrendered completely and utterly to the moment and to every feeling that accompanied it. 

By the time they came up for air, Seven had divested her former Captain of her dress uniform pants and had unclasped her bra easily behind her back, discarding it and the older woman’s tank top on the floor the moment they broke contact for long enough. Kathryn could barely speak as Seven’s eyes roamed her body with a combination of sharp desire and undeniable, burning love. Summoning the last scraps of her delirious mind, Kathryn fought to ignore her already quivering thighs and the ache of the hot, moist need where they met. She lent back against the cool of the conference table, the sudden recollection of where they actually were doing nothing whatsoever to temper the fire inside her now. She stretched back, resting her weight on her hands behind her and her eyes were an invitation. One which loudly and clearly said:  _ take me. I’m already yours, and I will be forever.  _

Seven didn’t need to be asked twice. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lordy, I am apparently some kind of on-a-roll today. Is this what happens when I don't write for a week?! This is the smut some of you filthy people have been waiting for. It's not the most E is for Explicit thing I've ever written but I hope it meets with your approval. You know I always like to hear about it if it does 😆 This is almost certainly the penultimate chapter so.....

Kathryn swore shamelessly as Seven lent over her and trailed possessive, lingering kisses down her body. The younger woman’s hands gripped Janeway’s hips and held them exactly where she wanted them, her mouth eliciting soft moans of pleasure and far louder whines of wordless demand. But as Seven carefully lifted and kissed, more gently now, under the elastic of the older woman’s underwear, Kathryn fell quiet as her body unconsciously tensed. 

“Kathryn?” The younger woman’s body language changed in an instant and she pulled her former Captain back up into her arms protectively. “I will not do anything you do not wish me to. Ever. Just tell me what you want, what you need.” 

“Mmmmmm,” Janeway said, sinking into the warmth and comfort of the arms around her and the affection and safety inherent in the words accompanying them. She hesitated. It was only then that Seven saw for the first time how deeply unsure Kathryn was and understood the magnitude of her privilege - that she was to be allowed to see this rare show of doubt, and vulnerability. She held her tighter, never wanting to let go. 

“I’m sorry,” the younger woman said, planting kisses on the top of Janeway’s already mussed hair. “I got carried away...it was too much, far too soon. I...we don’t need to do anything. Can I just hold you?” When Kathryn looked up in reply, her cheeks were pink from where she had been nuzzling against Seven trying, impossibly, to get even closer to her. To get under her very skin if she could. 

“No….Gods, Seven, I want you so badly I might die if you don’t touch me. Really.....I just.....I’m not as confident in everything as I am on the bridge of a starship, you know.” Her voice trailed off into a smile as she saw the young woman’s trademark, sceptical eyebrow rise higher than ever. She sighed, but it was a sound of peace more than anything else. A content sound of coming home to somewhere safe, where truths could be spoken without fear. “I….what you were going to do….” Sudden desire sparked again in both of them as their eyes met “I’ve never….I mean, I’ve never enjoyed it. I’ve never relaxed enough to enjoy it, to let myself go. It’s always felt too…intimate for me to deal with when I was with anyone before. Too intense maybe, and it makes me feel way too exposed.” Her last words came out in a babble.

Seven nodded in understanding. “You do not wish me to do this. Thank you for telling me, my love.”

“I don’t  _ not _ want you to do it.” Kathryn was blushing now, the colour spreading across her cheeks and chest like wildfire. “No, honestly - that’s not true. I actually really  _ really _ do want you to do it.” 

“You are sure?” 

“Yes.”

“But you’re….” Seven searched for the right word, “afraid? It will be the same as before - uncomfortable and unenjoyable for you - even with me.” 

“A little.”

“Then, why not wait? Until we are more comfortable with each other. Until the time is right? If it ever is. I do not plan to lose you again. We have all the time in the world.”

But something had changed in Kathryn’s face after she last spoke and Seven recognised the decision the other woman had clearly made. “No, I want you. Please. I want to feel your mouth on me, I want to have that intimacy with you, the way I never have with anyone else.” The adamant set of the the former Captain’s jaw as she spoke was one Seven knew all too well. There would be no arguing with her even had she wanted to.

Instead she murmured sensuously “Well then - as you were, Admiral,” and she kissed and caressed Kathryn back down onto the table, exactly as she had been minutes before. 

Seven started tantalisingly slow and loving, stripping away every single one of Kathryn’s insecurities and replacing them with waves of pure, unadulterated pleasure which the older woman found herself powerless to resist. Soon she was the one driving them forward, arching her hips against her lover’s skilful tongue as she buried her hands in her hair and entreated her for more, and more again. As Kathryn approached her second orgasm, Seven smiled to herself against the delicious wet heat surrounding her tongue. She understood completely what the other woman had meant about the intimacy and intensity of this incredible moment. But not about her own lack of confidence - in this exact situation, it turned out, she could be every bit as spectacular and as in command - every bit as utterly  _ perfect _ \- as on the bridge of any starship.

The clear, measured voice of the Ops manager for Starfleet Headquarters came back over the comms system. They didn’t hear it. 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAAND we're done! Thanks as always to all the most wonderful and delightful of creatures who have left kind and thoughtful feedback/hilarious and heartfelt reactions to this one.   
> I'll see y'all in the comments box and you'll hear from me again soon. Apparently I just started my first 'series' for no reason at all 🤣🤣🤣

A commotion of voices raised in relief from the corridors outside eventually alerted them to the fact that people were once again able to move freely around the building. The inevitable disappointment they both felt as Seven helped Kathryn back into her bra and tank top had done nothing to break the spell between them. As she pulled her pants up, her legs already ached warmly where she had clenched her muscles unconsciously as she arched her back off the table, as she came and then came again, barely able to stop herself from pressing her thighs, hard, against the sides of Seven’s head. 

They had not broken contact since then, unable to quite let go of one another and still be assured that this was, definitely, real. Her cheeks flushed and her heart fit to burst as she picked up her discarded jacket, Kathryn anchored herself with her arm around the younger woman’s waist, her fingers bunching the fabric of Seven’s shirt in her hand, claiming what was hers. Both of them could feel themselves practically buzzing and the glances they kept stealing at one another only confirmed the objective of the mission as it now stood - leave, quietly and find the nearest place where they could continue, uninterrupted, to show each other exactly what they’d been missing for the last five years. Kathryn was almost dizzy with imagining, second by second, exactly what she wanted to do to Seven as soon as she got her behind a lockable door. She tilted her head up to kiss the younger woman fiercely on the mouth, her message crystal clear.

They were about to head for the door when it opened and Chakotay stepped in. As he looked at both of their faces and then down at their interlinked hands, it was as though a weight had lifted off his shoulders and he smiled, with genuine affection. “Well, thank fuck for that,” he said, grinning even wider as he exited even more quickly than he had entered. 

Seven tilted her head so that it was resting on Kathryn’s and let the pure happiness of the moment fill her from top to toe. And then the two of them strode hand in hand - out of the room, along the corridor and into the sunshine of a bright, new day. 


End file.
